


The World Continues to Turn

by Jackie Thomas (Jackie_Thomas)



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:48:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22387441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackie_Thomas/pseuds/Jackie%20Thomas
Summary: He knows he should have told him.  At least as soon as he had set the wheels in motion, probably before.  It would have been the professional thing to do, the decent thing.  But he couldn’t bring himself to speak.  Even when, on slow afternoons in the office, or quiet evenings over a pint, the right moment insisted on presenting itself.
Relationships: James Hathaway/Robert Lewis
Comments: 18
Kudos: 171





	The World Continues to Turn

He and Hathaway have come to Hampshire, to where the English Channel washes up on the southern edge of England. They have taken witness statements on a stalling double murder case and Lewis is reading through their notes, trying to pry open the words reluctantly parted with to discover what was left unsaid. He gives up to watch the tide lapping at the shore, to watch a seagull swoop and soar in the April sunshine, to watch Hathaway approaching along the shingle beach.

Two coffees and two paper bags of sandwiches precariously held. Ever the man in the black suit, stalking through the colourful and rowdy Easter holiday crowd. He sees Lewis watching and, unexpectedly, breaks into a smile. Lewis finds himself smiling back.

***

Hathaway got his transfer notice by email. Lewis had not given him any warning it was coming, not a hint.

He knows he should have told him. At least as soon as he had set the wheels in motion, probably before. It would have been the professional thing to do, the decent thing. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak. Even when, on slow afternoons in the office, or quiet evenings over a pint, the right moment insisted on presenting itself.

He did not avoid the conversation because he regretted his decision. Although he often regretted it. But because he had no idea what plausible reason to give. He certainly couldn’t envisage telling him the truth. 

Hathaway reads the email just after they have arrested a suspect. They have sent the man off with uniform to be detained and are waiting for SOCO to finish in his house so they can look around. In the pause, Hathaway lights a cigarette and gets his phone out. Lewis can almost feel the air around his sergeant change temperature. 

“I’ve been transferred,” he tells Lewis. Disbelieving. “To Cowley Road to work for DI Warren.”

He looks up for a reaction. He is expecting shock and surprise but immediately sees whatever Lewis’ face is betraying.

“You already knew.”

The hurt is undisguised. Hathaway before the walls go up, can break anyone’s heart and Lewis’ is half shattered already.

Cornered, he attempts to play senior officer, “Transfer is a normal part of a career path. We’ve worked together for much longer than usual.”

Hathaway stares at him, “You mean, you made the request. Why? If I’ve done something wrong you could have had the decency to tell me.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Then, why?”

“Do I have to give you a reason? Does everything have to be endlessly talked to death? Having a sergeant isn’t a blood pact.”

Not much it isn’t.

Hathaway closes down, freezes over. 

“No, sir, you don’t have to give me a reason,” he says and turns away.

This is the worst thing he has ever done. But the best too. It is for the best. If Hathaway knew the thoughts he has been having about him, he would be the one to request a transfer.

***

Hathaway isn’t due to start at Cowley Road for four weeks. They are a fortnight in to the handover period when Lewis is summoned to the chief superintendent’s office. It has been two weeks of short tempers and long silences and it is a relief to get away. Jean Innocent picks up a letter and hands it to him.

“What’s this?” She demands.

He reads it and finds it perfectly clear. It could not be clearer. Hathaway has resigned.

He should have foreseen this. Lewis sits without being invited to.

“Bugger.” 

“First, you don’t want him as your sergeant. No credible reason given. Now he’s resigning. No reason given at all. I want to know what’s going on, Inspector Lewis.”

He does not reply.

She looks carefully at him, “You look ill, you both look ill. If you won’t speak to me, I can’t help.”

He stares at the letter. It is two sentences of the simplest, unvarnished prose giving notice of departure. No wonder she is frustrated. No amount of reading between the lines will furnish Jean Innocent with the explanation she needs. Only he can see the whole story, only he can see the wounded animal limping away.

“You can’t help,” he tells her.

“Then you talk to him. Get it sorted.”

He gets up, “I’ll try, but I doubt he’ll listen to me.”

“You’re the only person here he does listen to and that’s always been true. You can go.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I mean it, Robbie. Talk to him.”

And say what? Hathaway won’t be fobbed off with a lie or a platitude. But how can Lewis form the words to tell him the truth? Acceptance of his own feelings is one thing but acknowledging their ridiculous existence out loud to another still seems impossible. When that other is James himself, doubly so.

Robbie Lewis is an accomplished burier of unacceptable truths; he has had to be to survive. Speaking would have been disastrous when he was sixteen. And now, knocking on sixty, he is supposed to forget all that and embrace the openness of this thrilling decade. He can’t do it.

He stops outside their office ignoring the phone that has just started ringing in his pocket. On the other hand, if he really does love James Hathaway. And he can feel his skin heating at the thought. Then he owes him this one small personal sacrifice.

The office door opens and he finds himself face to face with the man in question, his own phone to his ear. 

“We’ve got a body,” he says.

***

There is a young woman’s blood-drenched corpse on the living room floor of a parochial house in Kidlington and one of the parish priests is missing. The other priest found the body, called the police and said prayers for her while he waited for them to arrive.

Laura hasn’t even finished telling them the victim died by a blow to the head with a blunt object when the missing priest comes in. It has been raining steadily all day and he is soaked through. Despite this, the blood on his clothes, hands and face has not washed away. It isn’t their most challenging mystery.

When they get him back to the nick, cleaned up and coherent he says the victim was one of his parishioners come to discuss the hire of the church hall for a party. He had mistaken her friendly nature and ‘given in to temptation’. He is unclear how this led to him reaching for a candlestick. When asked where the murder weapon might be, he has a hazy memory of returning it to the church.

They drive back to Kidlington in now customary silence, the rain falling in apocalyptic torrents against the windows. They find the Victorian church; bleak and sombre under the stormy sky. There is a helpful trail of blood leading from the door to the sacristy where they find the murder weapon. It is arranged on a shelf with several innocent candlesticks and distinguished by a red handprint and blood and hair on its base. In his shock, the priest had not thought to clean it.

They call SOCO to process the scene and go and wait in the car. It is then that they discover the rain has turned the church forecourt to mud and the car is now stuck. Hathaway swears and gets his phone out to call for a tow. 

They go back into the church to take shelter. Hathaway examines the statues and paintings before coming to sit at a pew on the other side of the aisle to Lewis. Lewis moves to sit next to him.

“Don’t resign,” he says. “Don’t be daft. Warren’s a good man, you’ll do well with him.”

“Just tell me why. I don’t care what the reason is, I just need to know.”

The rain stops and the sun comes out. It shines in through the stained-glass, casting the stone floor in dappled colour.

“It’s what you’re supposed to do,” Lewis says finally.

“What is?” 

“When you develop inappropriate feelings for a subordinate. You’re not supposed to continue working with them. You’re supposed to protect them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Protect them from your unwanted advances and skewed judgement. That’s why I had you transferred.”

A long silence follows.

“What do you mean by inappropriate?” Hathaway asks. 

He surprises himself when he speaks. The unimaginable coming easily and naturally.

“I mean I’ve fallen in love with you.” Hathaway stares at him. “I’m in love with you.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“You’re…I mean…you’re…? How could I not have known?”

“I’ve only recently started to think of you in that way...although I suspect it has always been true on some level. I’m sorry.” 

“Do you think I’m gay?”

“You put that subject off limits a long time ago, Hathaway and I respect that. This is about my professional conduct, my responsibility.”

“Your love.”

“James.”

“These are not straightforward questions for me.” 

He waves a hand at the altar, at the cold stone of an unpainted statue.

“I haven’t asked for answers. I’m not making an advance. At my age, I’m not a fool…” He loses his momentum and then continues. “But you wanted to know why I’ve done this to us and now you do.”

The silence extends with no rain to disguise it.

“Thank you,” Hathaway says. “For telling me. I understand now why you didn’t.”

“Go and work for DI Warren. It’s not too late.”

Hathaway turns away, looks down at his hands. It is a relief not to be the subject of such intense scrutiny.

“All right.”

The rain returns but the sun holds firm, causing a dancing sort of light.

“Just look at this, Hathaway. Look at it. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?”

“Never, sir. Never.”

***

Hathaway withdraws his resignation, packs up his desk and goes to his new inspector. Lewis is assigned a new sergeant, which he probably should have anticipated. 

He does not attempt to make contact. He has added embarrassment to the complex brew of their relationship. He won’t make it worse.

But weeks later, on a warm July evening, he is walking home when he comes across him at a table outside a pub. A moment later they are walking together.

“How are things going with DI Warren?” He asks.

“It’s going okay,” Hathaway says. 

“Glad to hear it. I always rated him.”

“And he you. How’s your new sergeant?” 

“She’s a good lass.”

“But no Sergeant Hathaway?”

“Well her Latin’s negligible, but we get by.”

Hathaway smiles, stopping to crush out his cigarette, “I’m going to go for inspector in the autumn,” he says.

“That’s great news. And about bloody time.”

“You see, all you had to do was give me the elbow to make it happen.”

Their conversation fades into silence while they negotiate the Friday crowds. 

“Can I ask a question?” Hathaway says when they have come to the quieter roads on the way to both their flats.

“You can ask.” 

“You said you had me transferred because it was what you were supposed to do.”

“That’s right.”

“But you only take the policies & procedures manual seriously when you agree with it. You break twenty-five different rules every time you park your car. Why did you decide to follow this one?”

They stop at the corner where they must part ways.

“I resisted for a long time,” Lewis says lowering his voice, unaccustomed to baring his soul on the public highway. “I didn’t want to lose you. Personally or professionally.”

“And then?”

“I couldn’t do it anymore. Act normally, pretend everything was the same. Working so closely with you was too painful, too difficult.”

He is surprised by a hand on his shoulder and a kiss, swift as the brush of an insect wing, on his cheek.

“And, well,” he stammers. “I knew Warren was looking for a new sergeant so you’d be all right.”

“I haven’t been any use, have I?” Hathaway says, letting go his grip, stepping back. 

“Use?”

“You told me something precious and important and I haven’t helped. I should have been a better friend.”

“I put you in an awkward position.”

Hathaway barks out a laugh, “The one person I care about in the world is in love with me and I run in the opposite direction. I need a different word to awkward.”

“James?”

“I’m not brave like you.” 

“There’s no call for courage. There’s nothing you have to do. Even if you were so inclined, I’ve got no expectations. I mean that, James.”

Hathaway goes silent, doesn’t move, becomes impossible to read.

“But I’d like to have you as a friend,” he goes on. “If that’s what you want. Could we meet for a drink occasionally?” 

“Of course, why not,” Hathaway says, abruptly turning on his heels. “Goodnight, sir.”

***

The world continues to turn, summer fades into September, they never go for that drink. 

Lewis’ phone rings late one evening, it is DI Warren.

“What’s happened?” Lewis asks.

“We got a call from an elderly couple living near Godstow,” Warren tells him. “They were worried about their son who had come off his meds, threatened them and then gone missing. We’re short on uniform so Hathaway went to speak to them. When he reached the house, he found them both dead and the son at the scene with a gun.”

“Christ.”

“He shot himself in Hathaway’s presence, after he’d been trying to talk him down.”

“Is James all right?”

“Not hurt but I want to send him home. Has he got a friend I can call, or anyone? It’s blood out of a stone trying to get personal information.”

“You’ve noticed that, have you? Give me the address, I’ll come and get him.”

He finds the crime scene busy with police activity but he can imagine how lonely the isolated house would have been when Hathaway was there by himself facing an armed man.

He sees him outside the house. He is wearing a scene suit and watching SOCO carry out one body after another. Lewis waits while DI Warren persuades him to go off duty.

“He shouldn’t have bothered you,” Hathaway says without heat.

He is silent on the drive home. Vulnerable without his usual armour; his suit and tie and well-shined shoes. He has an evidence bag containing the contents of his pockets; phone and warrant card, handkerchiefs and smelling salts. He fishes his keys from the bag to let them into his flat. Inside he goes straight to a bottle of whisky and downs a glass in one. Lewis stops him pouring another.

“Easy does it.”

He peers into the fridge, finding only a block of tired cheese and a takeaway box.

“Shall I order something? Could you eat?”

“Probably never again.”

“Fair enough.”

Lewis can’t help but notice details. The unwashed dishes in the sink, the empty bottles in the recycling, the slept-on sofa and the general air of neglect which, he’s certain, never used to be this bad.

“I was talking to him for an hour,” Hathaway says. “With two dead bodies in the room. I managed to get him off the subject of his grievances and I was sure he was coming out of it. I asked him to give me his gun and he just looked me in the eye and stuck it in his mouth.”

Lewis can see how close Hathaway had been standing when the shot was fired. He has blood splatter and worse on his face and in his hair. Things could so easily have gone differently.

“There was likely nothing more you could have done, Hathaway. When someone’s made up their mind.”

“We’ll never know, will we. Look, sir. Thank you for coming for me but you don’t have to stay. I’m all right. I’m going to shower for about two hours and crash out.”

“I don’t mind staying. You shouldn’t be by yourself.”

“You know me, I prefer it.”

“Why don’t I stay until you turn in?”

“Honestly, I’d rather you didn’t.”

Lewis doesn’t push it. Seeing out the tough cases together is another cherished tradition sacrificed to his unwise confessions. 

All the same, he sends a text the next morning.

“Sleep okay?”

“For a while.” 

“I assume you’re taking the day off.”

“No choice, orders from the Chief Super.”

“Good, get some rest.”

“I’ve no intention of closing my eyes for the foreseeable future.”

Lewis is wondering what to do with that when another text swiftly follows.

“Breakfast?”

They meet at a favourite café, but sit outside so Hathaway can smoke and drink black coffee and ignore his food.

“I don’t think you should rush back to work,” Lewis says. “I know you don’t want to hear it.”

“No choice in the matter. I’m not allowed to go in for the rest of the week.”

“The swine.”

“I know, but do they think me sitting at home reliving my adventures is going to improve my state of mind?”

“I believe it helps to do something life affirming. You could go for a row while the weather’s holding.” An idea forms. “Or I’ve got to go back to Hampshire to do follow-up statements on the Foley case. I’m leaving this afternoon and staying overnight if you fancy a drive?”

Hathaway raises an interested eyebrow.

“Go on. It’s take your former sergeant to work day. I mean, unless, you don’t want to because –”

“No,” Hathaway says softly. “I’d like that.”

***

The sun is still shining when they arrive. They check into their B&B and Lewis leaves for his first interview. Hathaway, assured he is not needed, goes to the beach. Lewis finds him there afterwards and guards his phone while he swims.

Hathaway throws himself down on a towel, letting the sun warm and dry him. Beside him, already too hot in shirt sleeves, Lewis thinks about running his finger along his flat, bare belly and collecting the drops of seawater there. 

It has been months since he fell in love with the man. Right here on this beach, if he had to name the moment. Why does it never get any easier?

“I feel like I’m dreaming, being here with you,” Hathaway says, opening his eyes and looking up at him.

Lewis is too surprised to reply.

“After yesterday when I would have sworn there was nothing good left in the world.”

“I’m glad you came,” Lewis says cautiously.

Hathaway props himself up on an elbow, “Are you about to rush off? Have you got time to talk?”

“I’ve got time.”

“Okay, so. I’m going to say the things I should have said in that church or when we were walking home.”

“All right,” Lewis says, finding himself almost breathless.

“I’ve been practicing this.”

“You’re never less than fully prepared, sergeant.”

“I love you at least as much as you love me.” Lewis feels his eyes prick with tears but Hathaway takes his wrist, won’t let him turn away. “Whatever happens, you should know that.” 

He goes on, “You give me so much and never ask for anything back. I wish I could be the sort of person who could just return your love. Instead I’m useless. I have no idea what to do.”

“It’s not true, James. You’ve been returning my love for as long as I’ve known you. You can’t know what you’ve done for me.”

“I’m glad of that. But you know what I mean.”

He seems to run out of revelations so Lewis speaks.

“For a million different reasons, I never expected a relationship, a love affair with you. I’ve never considered it a realistic possibility. I keep saying this because I don’t want to lose you completely.” 

“You do keep saying it. You say what you don’t expect but you never say what you want. If you could have what you want.”

“I’m not sure I know, to be honest. It’s not something I could quite imagine; a relationship with a man.”

“But is it something that you might want?”

“I trained you in interview room technique, didn’t I? Yes, it’s something I might want.”

Hathaway smiles, “We’re always on the same page.”

***

By the time Lewis has finished with today’s interviews and returned to the B&B it is nearly seven o’clock. He takes a shower and at last gets into more casual clothes. His room comes with a small balcony and he sits outside with a glass of cold white wine from the minibar.

He texts Hathaway and there is soon a tap at the door. He is also dressed to go out for a relaxed dinner but he takes the other seat at the balcony table and a glass of wine of his own.

“How did it go?” Hathaway asks.

“Good.”

The sun begins to set on the horizon and they watch, without speaking, the darkening orange and gold. Hathaway reaches across and takes Lewis’ hand.

End

January 2020


End file.
